Medical care’s state of denial

Each year, thousands of Californians find themselves at odds with their health insurers over whether they should get the treatment their doctors prescribed. Health insurers "are going back to the old strategies of the '90s, when they interrupted care on the front end by denying or delaying treatment offered by a doctor," said Jerry Flanagan, health advocate for Consumer Watchdog. But now patients have a number of resources to turn to if they believe they received an unfair denial.

With drug prices rising and many people out of work, pharmaceutical companies are increasingly helping patients with their co-payments. The use of such co-payment cards and coupons and other types of...

After Mark Logsdon tore a ligament in his knee skiing at Lake Tahoe in March, he returned home to suburban Sacramento and had an MRI scan at Sutter Davis Hospital. Sutter’s price for the knee scan was...